The present invention relates to equipment used in supplying items of rod-like shape, such as cigarettes, to a production machine. In particular, the invention relates to equipment designed to bring about the transfer of cigarettes from containers of substantially parallelepiped shape (tote boxes) carried on special trucks, to the infeed hopper of a packaging machine. The prior art, as represented by U.S. Pat. No. 4,029,221 for example, embraces the expedient of conveying a plurality of such boxes into a position alongside the packaging machine, by means of trucks, and then, in a sequence of movements brought about automatically along horizontal and vertical axes, transferring the boxes in succession to a tilting head by which the cigarettes occupying the boxes are dropped into the infeed hopper.
To arrange the trucks alongside, a packaging machine in such a way that the boxes can be transferred singly and in succession, it follows that there has to be a generous amount of free space near the machine in which to accommodate the trucks. Given that such space could be exploited more profitably, however, the use of the trucks in this manner is quite disadvantageous.
Moreover, with the need to carry the boxes through both horizontal and vertical trajectories, systems of the type outlined above tend to be complicated and costly.
The object of the present invention is to achieve greater simplicity and economy of construction in equipment of the type at hand, and to provide such system which also conserves manufacturing in space compared to prior art embodiments.